Nick’s Beef with red wine and carrots recipe

Ingredients needed (for 8 portions):

vegetable or sunflower oil , for frying
1½ kg shin of beef or stewing beef, cut into cubes
3 tbsp flour
2 large onions , sliced
600g carrots , cut into batons
4 garlic cloves , crushed
glass red wine (about 175ml/6fl oz)
850ml beef stock
3 bay leaves
few thyme sprigs
jacket potatoes or mash, to serve

Cooking:

·         Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large frying pan. Put the beef in a bowl, sprinkle with the flour and seasoning, then mix until well coated. Fry in batches, adding more oil if necessary, until everything is well browned. Transfer to a casserole dish.

·         Add another tbsp oil to the pan and stir in the onion and carrots. Cover and gently cook for 10-12 mins until softened, then remove the lid and cook until just beginning to brown. Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 min more. Pour in the wine and stir well, letting it boil up for 1 min, then pour the whole mixture over the meat. Add the stock, bay leaves and thyme, bring to a simmer, then cover and gently simmer for 2½ hrs until the meat is very tender. If the sauce looks a bit thin, remove the lid and continue to cook until it thickens.

Polish Golabki by Karolina

Last friday Karolina made a polish speciality for us: GOLABKI; basically mince wrapped in cabbage. It was delicious as always and apparently also very easy to make.

Here is the recipe:



·  Remove core from cabbage. Place whole head in a large pot filled with boiling, salted water. Cover and cook 3 minutes, or until softened enough to pull off individual leaves.

·  When leaves are cool enough to handle, use a knife to cut away the thick center stem from each leaf, without cutting all the way through.

·  Chop the remaining cabbage and place it in the bottom of a large pot.

·  Saute the chopped onion in butter in a large frying pan until tender, and let it cool.

·  Mix cooled onions with beef, rice, garlic, salt and black pepper until well combined. Don't overmix or the meat will become tough.

·  Place about 1/2 cup of meat on each cabbage leaf. Roll away from you to encase the meat. Flip the right side of the leaf to the middle, then flip the left side. You will have something that looks like an envelope. Once again, roll away from you to create a neat little roll.

·  Place the cabbage rolls on top of the chopped cabbage in the pan, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper. Pour beef stock over rolls, cover and simmer for 1 hour or until cabbage is tender and meat is cooked.

·  To make the sauce, remove the rolls and thicken the remaining stock with sauce flour, crème fraiche, tomato concentrate and spices.

Alex's "Meaty leek soup for cold days" (it's July in Edinburgh haha)

As the summer is so cold this year, Alex has decided to cook a winter dish from Germany for us - Leek soup with mince meat.

Okay, so this will look shamefully short in comparison to all the othere recipes on here.
I will give you a version of the recipe, that produces less volume, than what I made for
Lab Lunch, to reproduce that volume basicly just double everything except for Leek and stock, here
you should use 3kg/3L respectively, should you ever want to cook for ~13 people.
Here goes:

You will need:
500g Steak Mince
2kgs of Leek
Garlic
Stock cubes, beef is best, if you use minced beef for the meat
100g Creme Fraiche
100g cheese, I used ground cheddar,
Salt
Pepper

Optional:
Starch


Protocol:

Clean the leek and cut it into rings
Take a big pot and put some oil in, heat it up
Fry the steak mince, till its kind of granular, the smaller the granules, the better your
meat/volume ratio will be
Add the leek rings, sweat them for some time
Add a few garlic cloves (2+ depending on taste)
Deglaze with 2 litres of stock
Lightly cook for ~10mins
Season with salt and pepper

Optional (I didn't do this):
Mix 1 tablespoon of starch with cold water and add it, to thicken the soup

Add Creme Fraiche, mix in
Add Cheese, mix in, it melts

Let it cook, for as long as you like, the longer the better, or at least I think so, the
leek will become softer

Eat with Baguette or any other bread you like.

Anton's "Patatas a la riojana":

(If someone has a pic from that day, please post it :-) --> Done)
Ingredients:
(for 6 to 8 people)
1 to 1.5 Kg of potatoes
100 mL of extra virgin olive oil
150 g of bacon
200 g of Spanish chorizo
4 red peppers
2 big onions
100 mL of white wine + one glass for the cook
A little bit of paprika
5 drops of Tabasco (optional)
Salt


How to make it:
Peel the potatoes, wash them and break them in small pieces (just start with a small cut with the knife and then break the piece).

Put the olive oil in the saucepan and sauté the chopped onions and peppers with the potatoes.
Then, add the chorizo, the bacon and the tabasco drops. Next, add the paprika and quickly add the wine to not burn the paprika. Cover with water and when it is boiling put the heat down and cook it very slowly. Gently move the sauce pan from time to time to get a thicker sauce without smashing the potatoes.

Hope you liked it :-)
Antón.

Black current cake for Thomas' birthday

Ingredients:

300g flour
150g butter
150g sugar
2 egg yolk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 Pk vanilla sugar/ Few drops vanilla aroma
possibly a little milk

For the filling:
500g black/red currents
4 egg white
100g sugar
1 table spoon corn flour
some chopped nuts (almonds, hazelnuts...)

Whipped cream

How to make it: Make a dough out of the ingredients, add some milk if it is too dry, then put into fridge for 1 hour to rest.
Whip up the 4 egg whites, add the sugar and corn flour.
When the dough has rested enough, grease a baking tray, press the dough into it and make sure it is high enough at the edges. Carefully add the currents to the egg white foam and mix. Now pour this mixture onto the cake, top with some chopped nuts if you like, or you can also mix the nuts in with the wgg whites and currents.
Bake at 160°C aproximately 50 min.
Serve with whipped cream.

That's it! It's easy, right? Enjoy :-)

Michell's (now) famous Cream Schitzel

Again, today's lab lunch was a fantastic feast.
Recipe please :-)

Fajitas by Thomas

Last friday's Fajitas were absolutely delicious!
Thomas, we need the recipe!